


What Does It Mean To Fall In Love?

by timetravelwithcamelotsdetective



Series: A Prince, A Personal Assistant and One Dumb Love-Story [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, Modern Royalty, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 14:05:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5336819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timetravelwithcamelotsdetective/pseuds/timetravelwithcamelotsdetective
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur had never been in love, well not really. Until, one day, he realised that wasn't true any more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Does It Mean To Fall In Love?

Arthur never believed he was the romantic type. He'd pottered along nicely throughout his life, flirting here and there with girls he passed in the hope that one day he would feel something.

His father had told him stories of falling in love. When young Prince Uther met Ygraine at university at breakfast when she stole the last piece of toast and he'd said he could just tell that this woman was the one.

The one was just a load of bollocks in Arthur's opinion. Especially since everyone was kept away from the heir to the throne, so the most attracted or close to anyone he ever got was flirting.

Then, well then something changed.

Merlin had fallen into his life. And it was like a fog had lifted. It hadn't been instant, hell, they'd hated each other the moment they lay eyes on each other. Merlin the clumsy PA who seemed to have no boundaries, and Arthur the uptight prince who had to wear a red tie on all days of the week beginning with T or S (leaving blue for the other three days).

Yet slowly, and then all at once, the irritating habits of Merlin Emrys morphed into the quirks and charms that made Arthur fall completely, head over heels, in love. The way Merlin tried to curl his hair around his finger even though it would never be long enough. The crinkles round his eyes as he laughed. The softness of his voice in the evenings, knowing instinctively that Arthur had had a rough day and just needed quiet. His grumpy pout when he was ill, sniffing and spluttering everywhere but forcing himself into work because, when Arthur asked, "no one else could live up to the royal prat's expectations". The way his glasses constantly slipped down his nose meaning he had to push them up with his index finger, never getting a new pair because these ones were comfy so what's the need? And the way his face lit up when he started talking about history. His hands animated and his eyes shining as he waxed lyrical about Thomas Cromwell and Ewan Montagu not caring that Arthur didn’t have a clue.

It wasn't like what he'd thought it would be. It wasn't heart eyes and boxes of chocolate and roses for a girl who complimented him.

It was messy and incomplete. Growing and evolving, pulling at his heart strings and making him feel like he was going to burst. Wasn't pretty, wasn't easy, wasn't simple.

But he'd have had it no other way.

Cool winter’s mornings, cold and damp, when frost made the grass glisten a ghostly silver, were suddenly brighter. Where there was once loneliness in Arthur's life there was completeness. A hole had been filled, a hole he'd never realised needed filling.

When Morgana grumbled that Merlin had been rude, all he could do was laugh. When his father ranted and raved that Merlin had nearly destroyed a priceless painting, Arthur has to bite his cheek to keep from grinning - _what a dork, I love him_.

Because Merlin made sense in a world where nothing else did. He was a whirlwind of order, muddling up Arthur's life and removing the straight jacket that had crippled him since the day he was born.

It wasn't right for a Prince to use his PA for what Morgana had crudely called "sexual favours", he knew that. But falling in love? Now that was definitely not mentioned in the rule book. So he’d wait. He’d wait a thousand years for Merlin to fall back in love with him. And if he never did? Then so be it, Arthur realised one day. Because Arthur would rather spend a thousand years loving Merlin for no love in return, than to never have loved at all.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a drabble, a one-shot designed to help my heart which is in a fragile state right now. If you like it, great! If you don't, I don't mind :) Sorry for the lack of character development and general lack of everything. I'm thinking that one day this might be like the prologue to a longer work (I need to write a modern royalty one omg I love that genre) which would be posted on my other account but for now here's a drabble. Hope you enjoyed! x


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